Prepositional Pronouns

Where a preposition is followed immediately by a pronoun, the pronoun follows a similar pattern to the indirect object pronouns listed previously. At times though, the preposition and the pronoun are contracted into a single word.

For example, ‘with us’ would be translated literally as ‘com nós’, but it is often contracted into a single word: ‘connosco’ (which is spelt with a single ‘n’ by Brazilians). Similarly, ‘from him’, which would be ‘de ele’ can be contracted to ‘dele’. These contractions are optional, and some are used more commonly than others.

So, first of all, I’ll give you another table with the regular prepositional pronouns, following which we will take a look at the most common contractions.

Prepositional Pronouns

English

Portuguese

me

mim

us

nósa gente

you (singular)

tisivocêo senhora senhora

you (plural)

vocês

him

ele

her

ela

them

eleselas

Contraction of Preposition ‘with’ and Prepositional Pronouns

English

Portuguese

Notes

with me

comigo

with us

connosco

Spelt ‘conosco’ in Brazil.

with you (singular)

contigo

consigo

‘contigo’ is informal, ‘consigo’ is formal; ‘com o senhor’ / ‘com a senhora’ / ‘com você’ are more common than ‘consigo’.